


Ladies and Gentlemen, We are Floating in Space

by 11dishwashers



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Coming of Age, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 04:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10455366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/11dishwashers/pseuds/11dishwashers
Summary: Mark feels like he's watching his life through space shuttle windows, because he can only observe as he crashes.Or, Mark moves across the country and enrols in a new high school. Donghyuck's around.





	

So Mark’s standing there, 20 minutes into the longest piss of his life, checking the lock again.    
Right, it is serving it’s purpose- still indefinitely locked. Outside he hears the trails of the exhaust pipe as his dad tries kicking it again, but it doesn’t sputter. Damn this thin door, Mark thinks, and leans against it. He does not want to be found right now- the exact reason the flight mode button greets him on his lockscreen. It remains untouched.

Mark may be an only child, but even his parents would make fun of him in the current state. He actually hasn’t pissed at all. Nerves and that, pins and needles throughout the whole car journey. 

Like chapped lips, his cheeks are pink and dry in a bad way. He takes a tissue and tries to rub the dry tears off. Mark, just sixteen, charming yet single- has he heard that before? Whatever, he would shrug but that requires movement.

School will be rough. 

The moving van, apparently, hasn’t left his  _ old  _ house yet. To attach that adjective feels so insensitive to the old thing and makes Mark choke up another hiccup.    
The bargaining chips are reeses cups, lined up on that odd limbo-y space between the driver’s and passenger’s seat when Mark returns. He stifles a frown at this.

“Marky,” his mother’s saying, passing him one. He decides to take it because that’s easier than not. “Cheer up.”

“Stop crying, I saw people looking,” his father needlessly adds. “You’re practically an adult now. I was driving at your age.”

“Yeah yeah, don’t start ranting at me about this again,” there’s something so comforting about getting pissed off at your parents, and Mark accepts the familiarity, knowing it’ll only get rarer from here. He likes being sixteen and above the world. It gives him a well deserved streak of arrogance that he displays, unknowingly, with pride.

  
  


Now, as he stands with his suitcase in his arms, he goes from not-so-sure to where’s-the-nearest-cliff? within 2 seconds. The house is slumped in no particular direction, but slumped nonetheless, it has all these random patches of dead leaves usually associated with autumn. Here’s the catch- it’s that time of the year where  august becomes not-quite-august and schools open everywhere. The leaves scatter a bit with the occasional breeze. One lands on Mark’s shoe. He frowns and kicks it away just to get frustrated at something.

The yard looks like it’s trying to lay low, shitty single-direction path made by shitty builders who can’t smooth out concrete slabs to any sane person’s standards. After thinking so negatively about a garden path, Mark frowns and decides it’s just his own fault. He likes to be negative about the things contributing to this mess, hence how he slams the gate closed behind him, knowing very well it’s not going to catch itself before it makes a loud clattering noise. 

 

The room is marginally better. The old owner’s were smokers- that Mark can tell with a single inhale. He avoids breathing for as long as possible but gives up and let’s it regulate again. The cigarettes must’ve been kept in the bottom of a kit bag, since they smell so distinctly of boy-sweat, still lingering about near the window .    
This makes Mark think of Taeyong for reasons that aren’t so offhandedly insulting. He wishes Taeyong was here, not just for the company, but also because there’s a fucking desperate need for febreze. The thought would make him laugh if he wasn’t on a personal mission to be as miserable as possible, something he excels at.

He drops the bag on the foot of the bed. It’s not  _ his  _ bed, and as such, he doesn’t regard it. It’s just where he sleep. Back at home, his bed had been a dark wood that sort of resembled if mahogany went through a shredder and got glue gunned back together.    
He looks at the untouched duvets. The only wrinkles in it lead to the bag, but the rest was meticulously smoothed out, pillow plumped. He feels a sobbing sort of sadness that’d sway you if you thought about it as an object, but it passes as it started- too much for him to comprehend. He feels like he has decompression sickness and his waterlines go a bit damp, but before he can choke back a sob, he’s choking back a laugh about the sentimentality of it all. That urge to blast MCR suddenly threatens to overthrow his deductive reasoning but we’re not going down that rabbit hole again. 

  
  
  


He gets the hang of the neighbourhood fast, even though he sort of wants to die at that realisation. It goes like so; the little kids give him weird looks because he’s new, the neighbour’s girl sits begrudgingly on the doorstep with her lelli kelli makeup phone and gives him a skittish look every morning. Mark just wants to tell her to avoid blue eyeshadow.    
The middleschoolers are wrapped up in their own world, even though it’s a tight-knit estate on the good side of town, they group together with their matching drawstring hoodies and exchange answers on the maths homework.    
And finally, highschoolers. Mark wants to smack his head off a wall whenever he sees them- just becoming self conscious, and eyeing him like his picture is printed on the back of milk cartons in a glorious grayscale. There’s that girl with the red hair and the two guys are always walking at opposite sides of the street. He wonders if they’re enemies, if such an old fashioned thing existed nowadays.   
Mark just calls his enemies assholes, these being the kind of highschoolers on the tail ends of their growth spurt and are generally hated but generally respected.

  
  


They don’t wear a uniform at New Elm Community School, as in Mark’s “future” if such a thing exists, and it makes him freak out. They didn’t have a uniform back at home but it was alright, you’re already segregated enough by the time people start caring about that kind of thing. After at least 20 minutes of screaming, he settles with Generic Outfit Number #6-  _ Au Courtesie de Chanel.  _ He remembers to clear his browser history before someone inevitably looks over his shoulder on public transport and get’s a glimpse at ‘ _ most common colour for jeans MALE _ **_’._ ** For the record, it’s indigo, which Mark doesn’t even think is a real colour. 

_ “It’s just blue,” _ he had said to that weird guy who used to sit next to him in art. The one with the dandruff who stole watercolour paints like nobody's business. 

_ “No, it’s different,”  _ was the reply Mark had gotten. Half hearted, one hand propped open the cover of a tin of watercolours, inspected each colour carefully.

“ _ Fine, maybe kinda purpley too.” _

 

Kinda purpley. What bullshit, it was clearly blue, but he ended up going with darker anyway. Coming off as a metrosexual isn’t something he feels like dealing with this particular monday, and as such, he throws on the baggiest fucking hoodie he can find. He looks like that submissive kid who's against copying homework but has no grounds to refuse requests for his To Kill A Mockingbird chapter summaries. It’s a bit too late to worry about that though, and with some disdain, he conditions himself to like it.    
Mark is used to this- he can convince himself, with no evidence whatsoever, that he is above something. Above dressing badly- that’s today’s variation. 

_ I look… bland?  _ He thinks, staring at his own reflection in a shop window on the way to the bus stop. It’s a suitable kind of cold that lets you wear shorts if you can put up with goosebumps. At 7:48(he’s a bit late) in the morning, there’s a sense of deadness to the entirety of the estate. Nevertheless, he makes it to the bus stop, and similarly, onto the bus with no ghostly interruptions.

  
  


School went about as bad as you’d expect, take it or leave it.    
New Elm, it turns out, is a gritty place- an all boys school of a mixed school, with its tired, grey and exhausted linoleum floors. They got rid of the carpets, supposedly, because gum gets stuck to them easier. Mark actually saw a cleaner with a bleached fringe carrying an odd, shovel-shaped appliance. She crouched down just a few meters from him and started using it to scrape new gum off the ground. Mark had shivered and looked back to the numbers on the classroom doors.     
There’s some variety in the washed out paint, but most of it stays defiantly green, like bars of soap that are slowly becoming more and more translucent. To the school’s credit, there are two computer rooms- one on the ground floor and another in the science block. They have actual blocks too, like those schools in America with the lacrosse teams and  _ ‘foliage’  _ decorating the pathways. In New Elm, the blocks are more laid out like a trailer park than a prep school. Mark likes them in a way. Walking about outside would be nice if it wasn’t so cold out.

During his first class, geography bright and early on a monday, he had sat down with his new class schedule and some odd looks from his classmates. He felt not only out of place, but lonely, as the geography teacher- a nervous old man, balding- stepped out of the room. It almost surprised him when not one person turned his way, looking slightly delighted, and let out a string of insults about the classwork. It occurred to him that that just wasn’t right but there was no immediate way of making friends and tried to convince himself that he’d rather sleep in class instead.    
It was actually at lunch when he noticed one of the two boys from his neighbourhood standing by his locker. Every year has lunch at different times, and as such, Mark realises this guy is sixteen too. He guessed a bit younger, but the boy looked too comfortable with his year to be anything  _ but  _ an 11th grader. He turned to Mark and opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then Mark realised he actually looked good natured,  his bowl haircut covered his eyebrows so Mark couldn’t tell if he was surprised or not.    
“You’re new, yeah?” he finally said, then smiled, and held out his hand. Mark had shaken it, thinking it was a weird gesture, but that it could only mean good things. “I’m Jaemin.”

“Ah, I’m Mark,” they walked to the cafeteria together. Mark found himself a bit charmed.   
  


So, now he’s lazily pressing the buttons on his ps4 controller as Taeyong’s  _ angry voice  _ shows it’s ugly face, it makes him frown and turn down the volume. “Shut up,” he says and hears Taeyong scoff. It mystifies him how Taeyong Lee loves video games, he’s always been stern in a way that it seems like he’s just walked out of a Jane Austen book, not exactly the type to knifekill three enemies at once and call his own team ‘useless’.

“You never even asked me about school,” Mark rightfully, or so he thinks, points out. 

“Sorry, you’re right-” a sigh interrupts the apology, making it seem half baked, though it probably would anyway. “How was school?”

“Shit but I think I made a friend.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, his name’s Jaemin and he’s like, really young for our year.”

“Mark, watch out--!” an explosion happens on screen and dimly lights Mark’s bedroom wall in an off yellow colour. He groans, spamming the RESPAWN button, forgetting completely about school again.

 

The next day, or morning rather, Jaemin slips into the seat next to him at registration. Mark turns, as does Jaemin, and he can’t help but smile.

“Hey,” says Jaemin, then something like worry overtakes his expression. “Did you hear about a biology test? Because apparently there’s one, but I didn’t know, and I didn’t study, and-”

“Yeah, there is one. Weren’t you in science yesterday?”

Jaemin swears and suddenly there are too many flashcards in his hands, like they came out of thin air just to tell him the chemical makeup of sulfate magnesium.    
Mark wonders why Jaemin doesn’t sit with his own friends, then, as he looks around, he wonders why a fair few students look too young for grade 11. Did he accidentally get put with the 10th graders? There’s that kid that Jaemin may or may not be enemies with, and that boy who always wears clashing clothes, and that boy who hasn’t taken his coat off yet. It hangs down to his knees in a particular way that you can tell it’s intentional.    
He’s talking to this girl (Yerim, Mark thinks), until he’s not- and then he’s looking straight over. His eyebrows raise. Mark gulps and pulls out his science copy, even though he’s definitely going to fail biology either way, and pretends to be wrapped up in the whole thing.    
Jaemin certainly is, but Mark can’t tell if this is surprising just yet. He can feel Jaemin caring a bit, as it’s how he leans in to listen when the teacher talks, and his shoes are a splotchy brown leather sort. They’d be dorky on any other boy, but Mark’s not stupid and he can tell that Jaemin makes them cool.    
He hears Yerim giggle and wonders for a moment if that’s because of Jaemin, too. She was talking to him by the water fountain yesterday, the one in the languages block, and Mark just stood there. He doesn’t know if it’s    a regular thing for her to bat her eyelashes, and there’s no obvious way to tell unless he talks to her by himself, but he’s kind of shy and kind of reserved. He crosses the day off in his school calendar and turns his attention to the blackboard. His old school had whiteboards, and as the teacher walks in and writes out the date(including ‘ _ tuesday’  _ in korean, english, french and german), he realises he misses them. 

The golden period, as Jaemin calls it(and Mark’s inclined to agree), is that time when the 12th graders have their break- it happens at 12-1, since they’re the oldest and get the best time. Sometimes they go out to the fields just outside the classroom and play sports, which is the proven best distraction, and you can barely learn over the shouts from outside. The teachers give up most of the time- though apparently, there was a complaint issued last year about the noise, but it turns out the seniors have all the power when it comes to themselves. Mark’s sitting in the dusty laboratory, waiting for his own copy of the biology test when the seniors all rush out onto the hill just outside the classroom. They’re lazy about the whole thing though exceedingly loud.    
Jaemin looks over to him, there’s a chair between them where his bag sits, and grins. “Watch,” he says. 

The teacher- a plump woman with bad breath and long hair- sighs. She walks over and bangs on the window, but obviously no one pays her any attention. If they’d heard her, Mark couldn’t tell. 

“Well, everyone take out your copies,” she starts, then gives a pointed glance to Coat Boy. “-Or a page, and start taking down the notes on the board.”

There are no notes projected anywhere, but everyone seems to get it anyway, all waiting for it. Mark tucks the test into a stray folder and looks out of the window. He looks beyond the close patches of grass to just by the railings, a group of girls are leaning against it, seemingly unbothered by the hazards everywhere(footballs, tennis balls, someone’s shoe- all flying through the air constantly). One winks at Mark. He turns away because he doesn’t know what else to do.

 

Jaemin does have other friends, of course. Mark thinks it’s better this way, when Jaemin’s introducing him to the guy in their class with the clashing clothes. He’s sitting at the assumed regular lunch table, seeing as Jaemin goes on autopilot as he walks over.   
It’s on the left side of the cafeteria, just in front of the window, and it’s still a little too cold for Mark but the glass seems to amplify the heat. 

“Who’s your friend?” the boy asks, but he doesn’t look amused at Mark’s expense, just curious. It makes Mark a bit grateful as he takes the seat next to Jaemin.

“I’m Mark,” Mark says, because it’s obligatory. The boy nods like he doesn’t get it before speaking again.

“Renjun,” he says, and for whatever reason, it always seems like he’s shrugging. It’s in his eyes, Mark thinks. He probably shrugged when he dressed himself this morning since it’s all so bright, but no one seems to care, so Mark doesn’t either. 

Anyway, he likes Renjun, and their duo becomes a trio. It’s still a bit jarring. Mark feels out of place too much for a Perfectly Average Boy. It occurs to him that there’s no real solution.

 

New Elm is, by default, a little rundown. Mark’s old school had been sort of similar- a mass of technical issues, a lack of school books for everyone, but now it’s a bit worse. The neighbourhood is worse, too, yet he still finds himself a bit jealous of the groups of teenagers, probably his age, loitering about at every corner. He doesn’t think he’s friends with Jaemin like  _ that,  _ he doesn’t think they’d hang around outside of school. He’s probably an embarrassment, with his slightly big ears and bleached hair. Almost every person in his class has black hair- barring Coat Guy, Kim Yerim and Jaemin. All have brown hair. Mark thinks he’s probably overthinking things, thus causing him to overthink some more. Nothing’s really holding him back from it these days- he just does his homework and plays video games(with Taeyong) and occasionally, he skypes Minhyuk. 

_ It’s so boring over here,  _ Minhyuk always says. He never can take his hands away from his hair, fiddling with it and messing it up constantly.  _ Try not to forget about us, asshole!  _

Mark laughs, but he’s actually pretty sad about how things turned out. He misses home. He doesn’t miss french class, where he sits on his own because Jaemin and Renjun take german. He doesn’t miss every condescending look from the other students in his year.    
But, like the sixteen year old he is, he thinks some miraculous circumstances will boost his popularity up. (Just a little?)

 

And so, the routine goes halfway into september, up until the treasure hunt, which Mark considers the beginning of it all-  _ “no,” months later, a voice next to him says “it started when you walked into homeroom” he laughs and shakes his head _ .   
They’re in the sports block, and Mark itches his neck where his collar itches the skin, standing next to Renjun at the back wall. The hall smells like dust and the peroxide that Mark seriously needs to use to fix his roots soon. He wonders why all school buildings smell like chemicals in certain places, a stretch to presume it’s the cleaning products. 

“Today we’re going to do some orienteering, like we did last year,” the teacher starts, he’s standing in front of the class and Mark wouldn’t know where to look if it was him. It’s not like you can make eye contact with a class of students at once.   
The teacher has these laminated pages tucked under his arm, a telltale sign of what’s to come. “So everyone partner up, two people in each group, and we’ll head to the park. You should know the rules by now.” 

Mark freezes and, hoping against hope, thinks about asking Jaemin to partner up with him. It doesn’t even hit him that he has no idea what the rules are, just, he’s so focused on not being a burden to some kid who’s friend group has an odd number of people in it.    
He turns to Renjun and Jaemin who are chattering but not really, like when you talk just to avoid something, and Mark realises it’s him when he sees Jaemin’s helpless expression.

“Who are you pairing up with?” Renjun asks, because he’s not exactly the observational type.

“Uh, don’t know yet?” Mark responds. He’s waiting for the teacher to put him with someone- that’s his last hope.

Except it isn’t.    
Jaemin’s expression changes first, from unreadable to surprised, and Mark’s sure his eyebrows are raised even though he can’t see them. 

“Hey,” says a voice behind Mark, it’s nasally and he’d expect some lonely kid if he didn’t know any better.   
It’s not like Lee Donghyuck has ever shutted up in any class they’ve had. Mark’s sure the whole school would recognise his voice, even if he just spoke in punctuation. He’s that kid with the coat, the one who’s friends with Yerim and widely liked- that’s what Mark knows. They shared a glance on the first day. 

He turns around, and there you go- Donghyuck’s standing there with his hand out. Mark shakes it and wonders if it’s a cultural thing. “Nice to meet you, Mark Lee,” says Donghyuck, keeping his grasp firm. “I’m your partner, Donghyuck, and we’re definitely going to win.”   
It strikes Mark as extremely modest that Donghyuck introduced himself.  _ Like he wouldn’t know. _ He realises, straight off the bat, that he isn’t scared of Donghyuck at all. The kids Donghyuck hangs around with have all their terrifying mannerisms, and for the most part, Donghyuck seems to keep them relatively under his control. Not in a bad way- more in a ‘ _ don’t be a dick’ _ way.  _ ‘Hey, be nice, she has to live with that haircut.’ ‘He’s new- I’m sure he’s already feeling shitty. Give it a rest.’  _ The last one is hypothetical- Donghyuck and Mark’s paths have never crossed before. It seems realistic in Mark’s mind, anyway, and he feels Donghyuck emanating waves of obnoxiousness.   
He’s got the light brown hair, and a new coat(black, some sort of faux leather), his eyes are on the wide side, and Mark noticed the shoes weeks ago.  _ Oh my god, the shoes.  _   
They’re bright, fire engine red, straight out of a packet of crayolas. They seem to glow with yellow light, even just there in the dim hall where everything’s washed out and the paint reminds Mark of when he swore and his mother washed his mouth out with soap.

“I’m Mark,” Mark says, and it sure feels like he’s said that a lot. For some reason, it’s almost as though he has the upper hand. He wants to ask Donghyuck what age he is. “What age are you?” he manages, though not by choice, it feels like his mouth’s giving itself a free pass to say whatever he wants.

Donghyuck snorts. It’s not inherently mean, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t intended to be. Mark tries not to analyse Donghyuck’s actions too much, since he’s like a very strange chapter title with no context, Mark doesn’t presume things and it’d be impossible anyway. “16, I skipped a grade,” he says. Again, it doesn’t sound boastful, but Donghyuck seems to be a bit of a show off so Mark’s wary.

“Seems like half the class skipped a grade,” Mark replies and Donghyuck catches him looking over to Jaemin and Renjun, who’ve long since gone and collected their maps, he laughs and Mark doesn’t know whether to join in or not. He settles with what he -hopes- is a smirk. He’s smirking on the inside anyway, since his humour is now validated.

“You’re 17, right?” Donghyuck replies and (obviously) leading the way to collect their map so they can start walking to the park. Mark, though taller, almost has to skip along because Donghyuck speed walks everywhere. 

“You’ve done your research,” Mark says, a bit out of breath. Donghyuck slows once they’re out of the hall and walking out through the school carpark. 

“What, your name and your age? Mark Lee, you’ve been the talk of the school since you showed up. There are rumours.”

That’s odd, Mark thinks, unsure if Donghyuck’s lying. Sure, he gets stares- but it’s been close to three weeks now and he thinks everything’s passed. No one seems  _ too  _ eager to talk to him, but that might just be evidence of his shyness. “Really? Doesn’t seem that way,” he says, trying to act cool about the whole thing.

“I mean, you just sort of showed up here, and no one heard anything before. People talk.”

“Are you here to collect information or something? FBI or KGB?” Mark responds, and hopes Donghyuck takes it as a joke. 

_ He does,  _ laughing again like he’s knowingly trying to make Mark feel witty. Some people would smile at anyone, but Donghyuck doesn’t- still doesn’t- seem to be the type. “Actually, the CIA, but that’s our secret,” Donghyuck takes a corner Mark didn’t know to take, and he scurries to keep up. They’re walking down a basic cement footpath, the kind with grass between it and the road. The traffic isn’t particularly fast. Across the street, an eight year old boy stands in his yard, whacking a plastic bottle with a hockey stick. He’s holding it wrong and he should be in school. 

“I’m guessing your friends have an odd amount of people,” Mark says, but it doesn’t even make sense to him, since Donghyuck’s always been the center of it all. Yerim, Jeno and Sanha follow him around endearingly, carrying each other's’ books, Mark doesn’t know the names of the others but it seems nice enough.

“No, didn’t I tell you? I’m a private investigator,” Donghyuck scoffs and has the audacity to look offended. 

“But seriously?”

“Gah, you’re annoying,” Donghyuck says, though he doesn’t look pissed off at all. He pinches the bridge of his nose and hands Mark the map. “Right then, Mark Lee, lead the way.”

Mark pretends to look at the map, he really does, but he has no idea where to go or what to say, though the gates of the park are only a few meters away and the pace that Donghyuck set is tiringly fast, Mark’s feet hurt already. 

 

They practically ran through the park, finding the letters that made up gibberish words ( X_C), until they realised that everyone was waiting for them at the school gate.   
Mark learned some things- like how Donghyuck lives in what he’s heard is a bad part of the town, how and why Donghyuck skipped a grade(supposedly a math genius but Mark’s not sure if he believes it), and what’s going on with Yerim and Jaemin.

“Fuck all,” Donghyuck had said when Mark asked, wringing his hands out as they walked back to the gates. Slowly- just when they needed to hurry up. Mark spotted two magpies perched on a park bench, light catching their tinted blue tails. 

“Really? She seems to like him,” Mark had responded, because it was true, and he was curious. He was never intimidated by Donghyuck, but after doing nothing but talking and running for the past hour, he felt that the questions came naturally. Though he was still more awkward than he would be with say, Renjun. He’s just awkward, having an aptitude for it, it isn’t just hormones or whatever. He’s sort of embarrassing, but he’s come to accept it. (no he hasn’t)

Donghyuck sighed and squinted so he could see through the sun, and now it seemed brighter because of the cold, because it was more raw. It was just light, no heat. “Yeah, but he doesn’t like her. Think about it.”

“Did something happen?”

“Nah, just,” he paused, seemingly to think. “Y’know. She isn’t really his type, from what I can tell.”

“Oh? What do you, the expert, think his type is?”

“He didn’t tell you he went out with Soomi?” Donghyuck’s grin said it all, and the conversation was dropped.

 

Much much later, as in the next day, Mark notices a girl called Soomi at roll call, just because she says ‘present’ instead of ‘here’. Her voice is soft, which is a contradiction in it’s own right- he turns around and sees her at the desk by the window, left corner.    
She has sharp eyeliner and an air of confidence that Mark can feel all the way at his desk. One leg over the other, she sits like she’s waiting for someone to shut up, and he wonders if it’s the teacher, then stops wondering because Jaemin’s poking his shoulder.

“That was weird, huh?” is all he says, like Mark can deduct the context from such a vague statement.  

“What was?”

“How Donghyuck came up to you like that.”

“Oh,” Mark breathes, because was it such a stretch? He glances across the room. Donghyuck’s got one of those blue lollipops that everyone seems to eat but no one regards. He’s looking directly at the blackboard, raising his hand to his mouth, lollipop pressing against his lips so they turn a bit blue. His eyes flicker over to meet Mark’s and then he’s smiling. It doesn’t seem mocking, though Donghyuck is a cocky highschool boy; so sure of his place in the world, and Mark can’t really tell. He smiles back because it holds less risk.    
For a moment, as Jaemin has yet to realise that Mark’s taking an unusual amount of time to answer, he lets himself wonder what he and Donghyuck are. Then he stops letting himself because he’s not nice, and he’s not going to believe delusions.  _  
_ _ They’re not friends. _ Donghyuck is always… crowded, and Mark is always right out there in the open, but unwilling to move. He’s stubborn, and he thinks Donghyuck might be too, but then again he doesn’t think Donghyuck wants any sort of friendship. That’d be stupid- yeri says ‘here’ from across the classroom. 

Mark snaps out of it. “Here,” he says when his name is called. “Present,” says Soomi.

“I think he’s just curious,” Mark responds when casual conversation rises over the class again.

Jaemin looks at him, eyebrows presumably scrunched, head tilted. His bowl haircut slants weirdly whenever he does this “Wait, what did I ask again?”

“Nevermind,” Mark replies. 

When they leave the classroom, Renjun’s waiting outside the door as everyone walks by him. He looks really tired, and he keeps holding his messenger bag up with his hands and shrugging his shoulder. There’s some familiarity in the action- he always switches which shoulder the strap’s on, and Mark wants to tell him to buy a backpack, but Renjun has forever been a bit of a stand out with his fashion. He’s wearing a cap backwards today and the brim is pointed down, covering the back of his head, which is shaved but a bit stubbly.

“How didn’t that fall off when you ran for the bus?” Mark asks and Jaemin snickers, because Renjun always misses registration. 

“What, like I’m going to skip breakfast,” Renjun responds with a shrug that has nothing to do with the conversation. They step out the door and it’s the coldest day so far, walking to the languages block. Mark didn’t do the assigned reading task because he thought that hoovering the stairs was enough work for one night. He considers writing himself a note, but settles with asking the others if they did it.

“Oh, absolutely not,” Renjun says at the same time Jaemin says “obviously.”

Mark smiles. He spots Sanha gesturing wildly to that Jeno boy, and Sanha is mostly limbs, so it makes his gestures even bigger. He’s known for being worryingly good at first person shooters and Mark wishes they were friends.

 

When he gets home, he debates whether to tell Minhyuk about the orienteering incident, but ends up anyway because it’ll get drawn out of him no matter what.

“What’s he like then?” Minhyuk asks, and murmurs a small ‘ _ what the fuck is a sigma’  _ as he scribbles something into his maths copy. The video call lags for a moment so Mark can just see a stillframe of Minhyuk’s confused face. 

He wishes he knew enough about maths to help, but it’s his weak subject, so he just says “Look at the answers at the back of the book.”

“Fuck, I got stuck with the worst teacher,” Minhyuk responds. “She looks at our rough work too.”

“Just like, scribble random numbers in then.”- Minhyuk shrugs at this and starts writing faster. “And Donghyuck’s… weird. He seems nice but it doesn’t make sense for him to be, you know?” 

“I guess,” this means he’s not listening. Mark sighs and grabs his DS off his bedside table, where a can of febreze stands proud.

He misses Taeyong, too.

  
  


Wednesdays are inherently sunny. Always, always, always the day where you have a nice walk home, or spare the time for a nice cup of tea in the morning, or meet a nice girl who you’d go on to marry. Good things come on wednesdays, because they’re never an absolute- though Mark clings to these, because you can argue constants, but not the things that are set in stone. He doesn’t wake up so much as become himself again, and doesn’t walk so much as pace to the bus stop.   
He’d gotten a haircut, but his hair remains blonde and sort of straw-textured. There’s a girl holding a jack russell on the bus to school.

In french, Mark walks in to find Donghyuck at his desk, leaning against it. He’s wearing his coat indoors again. Mark gulps but doesn’t hesitate when he walks over.

“Could you, uh, move?” he says, and though it reads passive aggressively, it’s barely even audible. He’s trying not to sweat, and doesn’t understand his nervousness. He supposes it’s how Donghyuck looks a bit rough today, eyes not as sparkly as Mark thinks they might usually be, his sleeves are much longer than his arms and they fall across Mark’s desk. Donghyuck’s gripping the sides of it and his knuckles are probably white, but you can’t see them.

“Why? This your desk?” Donghyuck asks instead of answering. 

“Yeah.”

“I got the right one then,” he sort of swoops into the chair next to Mark’s, which isn’t usually occupied- their class is small. Because of this, Mark knows the seating plan, and Donghyuck sits in the corner so only Jeno’s next to him. But since there’s no incessant talking, Jeno must be absent. Mark sits down and feels anticipation for nothing in particular.    
He takes out his copy and lines the page.

“So, Mark Lee,” Donghyuck starts, and Mark knows to pass him a biro because he’s just sitting there and fiddling with the velcro on his sleeves. He doesn’t say thanks, just smiles. It’s nice. “How’ve you been?”

“Good,” Mark responds plainly, but he’s no longer nervous. It counts for something. “You?”

“So and so, Jeno ditched me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he didn’t tell me he wasn’t coming in, otherwise I’d have stayed in bed.”

“Can’t you just talk to Yerim instead?”

Donghyuck shrugs. “Could do.”

Mark finds it difficult to respond without being asked a question, or asking one himself, so he’s tongue tied. The weather is a boring topic, right? Don’t be too personal either…

Donghyuck must sense this, because he adds “But I wanted to talk to you today.”

_ Why,  _ Mark thinks, but knows it’s not exactly a tactful thing to say.

“That’s funny, I was thinking the same.”

“What, miss me?” I don’t think I need to tell you that Donghyuck looks amused. When does he not?

“Obviously.”   
They share a grin.

 

Donghyuck sits with them at lunch, and Mark wonders if he’s being used because Jeno’s not around and Sanha’s practicing in the music room. 

“Why don’t you just go anyway?” Mark asks, counting his money and recounting until Jaemin passes him a dollar note with a helpful smile. Jaemin is so nice, Mark thinks, feeling a sudden burst of affection.

“You never give me any money,” Renjun mutters, supposedly so that only Jaemin can hear(they are sitting next to each other), but through one of those odd silences that sometimes happens to the whole school, Donghyuck hears it and stifles a laugh.

“You really wanna get rid of me that easily, Mark Lee? Have you not considered that me, Renjun and Jaemin are great friends?” he says.    
Much to Mark’s surprise, it mortifies neither Renjun nor Jaemin, and they’re actually agreeing through their indifference. He can’t decide if this is good or not, but instead dumps his school bag on the table. “Someone come with me to the shops,” he says.    
Of course Donghyuck volunteers.

(Of course? What is Mark saying?)

 

The next day, Donghyuck sits next to him again, and Jeno’s still out. He just wonders how long until this ends. He’s not sure he wants it to, what with the occasional witty comment he manages. He’s been here, laughing at his own jokes all day, and the fact that Donghyuck joins in- shamelessly, might he add- makes him think of it as genuinely funny. He laughs harder after that. It comes easier. An absolute-  _ if(Donghyuck = laughing){ _

_ Mark.laugh(); _ __  
_ }.  _ __  
He doesn’t know if other teenagers overthink as much as him. It would be a welcomed surprise.

 

The cafeteria smells like deep pan pizza, and as it is New Elm, a serious thought becomes “Who ordered pizza to the school?” followed by “Can I have some?” 

“Stay classy,” Mark hears a voice say only a few meters away, but he doesn’t let himself look up until the whole maths equation has been copied into his homework page. When he does, he sees Sanha saying this to those three 12th graders with the same blueish tracksuits. They have a pizza box laid out on the table for them, and for some reason, it reminds Mark of when he stayed at Minhyuk’s the first time and got weirded out by the way he laid his outfit out, torso to ankles, like a corpse on the floor. Mark tried not to think about it too much but often found himself stepping over the outfit as if it were a real dead body.    
Surprisingly, Sanha turns around and makes eye contact with Mark. It’s brief but he finds himself unwilling to break it, and then Sanha says “pizza?” and Mark’s definitely walking over.

“You’re Donghyuck’s friend, right?” Sanha says, which is what Mark was thinking even though he knew anyway. It’s only 8, though the clocks went back yesterday, so Mark considers it 9. That isn’t too early for fast food, in his opinion. 

He looks between the three 12th graders, who look old-young, as in young but older than Mark. They’re obviously intimidating, but that’s only because of their age. They’ve got soft faces.

The one on the right says “You alright? Take a slice if you want.”   
Mark does, and after the three clear off to god-knows-where, he’s just standing there with Sanha. This is his chance, he thinks. He racks his brain for a question but it seems like an impossibility, so instead waits for Sanha to ask him something.   
Sanha seems charismatic, he always volunteers to read out in class and always helps other students with the classwork. Honestly, Mark thinks he’s cute- but it’s a revelation in it’s own way. He probably realised it when Sanha came in wearing his cap sideways on his head, and it was so uncool that a bit of Mark felt endeared by it.

“What’s your first class?” asks Sanha, he probably hasn’t noticed they’re in the same class yet. It seems like Mark’s either ostracised for being new or completely and utterly blanked these days. Once as he waited by the water fountain, a girl from the year below stared at him as she sat outside her classroom. Stared, as in for too long to be curious, and outside her classroom, as in kicked out of class.

“Music,” Mark replies.

“Cool, me too. Let’s walk together?”

It’s much too early to be loitering about the arts block(which contains not just the art room, but the music and practical rooms, for whatever reason), since no one else seems to be around just yet and the heaters aren’t on. It’s becoming october, slowly but surely. You can see it in the way Mark’s dad wheeled a space heater into the sitting room, and how his mom’s been buying these odd, deco “throw blankets”. She says “Hey, we just moved here, we have to decorate,” because his dad always complains about the amount of stuff she seems to buy.

Sanha drops his drawstring bag by his side, and it hits the ground since his arms hang so low. It’s quiet. They’re leaning against the wall, because leaning against the radiators would do nothing but make you colder.   
It seems as though they have nothing to say to each other, until Sanha finally says “So… Do you play video games?”    
He lights up when Mark nods, and the gestures come after.  _ He’s the type of person Renjun would draw,  _  Mark thinks. 

 

Incidentally, Mark doesn’t realise how much he’s been wanting to talk to Donghyuck until he’s right there. In the flesh, he’s a bit quieter than Mark imagines, because there’s this notion that all Donghyuck does is chatter. It’s a lie founded in the truth, because he waltzes into the music room and sits on the other side of Mark(Sanha’s sitting next to him) after greeting the teacher in a distinctly not-dorky way. He’s wearing this black beanie.    
When he takes it off, all his hair falls back into place around his face, and it’s the brightest red. Mark wants to rub his eyes but he realises that would be offensive, so he does it anyway. For a moment it seems like the brightness can rival Donghyuck’s red shoes, but the fluorescent light catches the tongues of his laces and the moment passes.   
Mark thinks it’s cute how Donghyuck’s hair curls slightly at the ends but he can’t bring himself to say so. 

“Nice hair,” he says instead, and it must be what makes Donghyuck smile so wide. 

“Thanks! I dyed it last night!” he tells, and this seems to be the most regular thing he’s said to Mark. You could imagine someone like Yerim saying this. Sanha’s eyes widen but he seems to find it funny.

“You dyed it yourself?” he asks teasingly. 

“Yep.”

“Well that explains the patchiness.”

A coldness rises over the classroom, and Mark shivers as it goes up his neck. Donghyuck and Sanha burst out laughing, not at him, but each other.    
Mark and Minhyuk were like that.

“You’re such a dick,” Donghyuck says to Sanha, who seems smug about the whole thing.    
The teacher starts checking attendance and the class goes quiet again.

“Present,” says Soomi, fiddling with the case of her violin, sitting two rows in front of Mark. He turns to Donghyuck and they both stifle a laugh.    
Really, Jaemin?

 

The weather has been progressively picking up storm over the past week. It seems like the sky’s barely sticking a fork in a plug outlet, and there’s not only hail, but static electricity in the air.    
Mark walks to the shops after much complaining from his mom, who’s too busy to do things for herself. When he steps in the door, it feels quite like taking refuge from a snowstorm. He wipes the bottom of his shoes on the mat, even though they’re just rain-soaked., and wonders if it’ll snow this year the way it did at home.    
For some reason, when he thinks of falling snow, he thinks of Donghyuck- and not in an awfully embarrassing straight-to-dvd romcom way. It’s more the realisation that Donghyuck is probably cruel in snow fights, and that Mark wants to experience it. And they’d laugh. Donghyuck’s nose would scrunch up like it usually does when he’s trying to be nonchalant.   
Mark turns into the next aisle and tips some packets of instant ramen off the shelf and into the shopping bag.   
When he pays, he lingers for a bit until he realises there’s really no change for him, then turns and softly closes the shop door behind him. As soon as he steps outside, he bashes into someone and gets a faceful of red fabric. The person’s laughing, but it’s familiar, and when Mark stumbles back he smiles.

“Hey, Mark,” says Jaemin, and he’s a bit red in the cheeks. Mark remembers to feel cold. 

“Hey,” he says and manages an inoffensive grin, because he doesn’t know what else to respond with. 

“Cold, huh?”

“Yeah but my mom made me go shopping for her.”

“Well- do you… Do you wanna come over? I mean, after you leave the bag home.” 

 

When he calls “I’m going out,” as he opens the front door, he doesn’t receive a response, but thinks his parents must be happy that he’s adjusting anyway. If that’s even true. He really,  _ really  _ fucking misses Minhyuk. They were going to go on a roadtrip in senior year, a plan that, no doubt, wouldn’t have happened either way. Still- it’s not even a possibility now.    
At least he has Jaemin now, who’s waiting at the foot of the yard, eating square after square of a dairymilk bar. He has chocolate on his nose that looks a bit like bird shit. Mark tells him so, and he laughs, but it’s not shameful. In this way, he’s like Donghyuck. Mark admires them both. 

“Do you play video games?” he asks Jaemin in what he imagines is a Sanha way of saying things. 

“No time,” Jaemin says. When Mark asks, he’s handed three squares of chocolate(in the wrapper) instead of one. 

“What do you do then?” Mark asks, as if video games is the only logical way you can spend your time. He thinks it is, at least, and imagines Taeyong feels the same- though Taeyong prides himself on being a no-nonsense sort of person who doesn’t have humanly wants and needs. 

“Study.”    
_ Oh,  _ thinks Mark.  _ That’s weird.  _ Then,  _ that makes sense. _

 

He’s led through the estates, to one of the richer looking houses. Again, it fits, with it’s unrealistic lighting and wilting daffodils. It seems to defy all laws of physics since the rest of the daffodils died in mid june, but Mark thinks Jaemin’s parents must have a love for appearances that surpasses their humanity. The grass is carefully tended and trimmed, but not too trimmed, so it could still shake in the wind like a van gogh painting. What would tear the shingles off of Mark’s roof, would ruffle Jaemin’s garden so gracefully.    
There’s a man sitting on a lawn chair reading from a newspaper. The pages are very still. Mark assumes this is Jaemin’s dad(second guess would be a gardener, butler or fantastical homeschool teacher- one who sees all of Jaemin’s extraordinary potential and teaches him about english literature before either 1) dying or 2) floating away).    
He expects to be introduced as they walk up the path, but Jaemin ignores the man entirely. Mark guesses they’re not that sort of family. 

“Let’s go up to my room,” Jaemin might as well say, but he doesn’t because there’s no other place. The interior is bleak but ornate, and Mark thinks there must be a drawing room in here full of plastic-covered antiques. It’s not the sort of place you go to when you want to relax.

Jaemin’s room is similar, though he’s attempted to make it seem disarrayed. There’s a pillow thrown on the floor and it’s not something you’d just leave there as a messy person- it’s purposeful. Ironically, even the backwards-forwards spines of the books in the shelf look too perfect to happen without intent.    
There’s a tv across from Jaemin’s bed, which was made when they walked in, though he quickly crashed onto it so it got messed up. Again, Mark wonders.

“Let’s watch a movie,” Jaemin says as Mark sits next to him. “I have some good ones.”

For a minute, as Jaemin gets up to look through his stack of dvds, Mark entertains the possibility of Jaemin liking him. He’s generous, and smiles often, and he always does things to impress- not just Mark, but everyone- and he had asked Mark over so bashfully. 

Once, back home, Mark had stayed late after school for detention. It was nearing 5 and the only noise was the sound of his shoes squishing as they hit the lino floor. He saw a boy and a girl who had been in detention with him at the lockers. The boy asked her to hold his books and she laughed, and Mark had thought  _ he likes her.  _  Mark envied him. At the time, it seemed as though having a crush was just a thing that romantics did, he craved it, but when it happened as it should- without any choice, he felt a bit sick.

So now, he thinks  _ poor Jaemin,  _ and then decides that there’s nothing going on at all. It doesn’t make sense- sure, Mark looks alright in the mirrors, but he’s too reserved to be likeable. Jaemin dated Soomi, supposedly, and Mark doesn’t think he’s that type at all. 

At the back of his mind, something nags at him, and it’s ten minutes into the movie when he realises what.    
He wants to know what Donghyuck’s type is. If he had to guess, petite girls like Yerim, wearing tennis skirts and red lipstick. Red.    
Mark’s stomach goes heavy, like it’s about to fall out of his ass, but he breaths and it goes and he’s sitting on Jaemin’s bed in a hometown that’s not his. 

_ Call Minhyuk later.  _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm reading Prep, and it inspired me to write about highschool.  
> Minhyuk is ASTRO's Rocky, Sanha is ASTRO's Sanha, Yerim is Red Velvet's Yerim.  
> Should update soon! Please leave a comment if you liked it♡


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